A few years ago in a London housing benefits office, a researcher spotted something unexpected: a young woman with nothing but a hand-me-down PlayStation Portable was navigating GOV.UK's Housing Benefit pages instead of playing games. The PSP's web browser—slow and limited to just three tabs—could still render the government's information because it was built with simple, lightweight HTML.

Most developers obsess over modern browsers and powerful devices, but GOV.UK takes a different approach. Their pages work even on browsers that would make developers cringe. This isn't about supporting legacy technology for nostalgia—it's about ensuring access for people who might only have a PSP, smart TV, or ancient mobile browser. When someone's laptop and phone get stolen, these become lifelines, not curiosities.

The technical lesson is straightforward: start with plain HTML that works everywhere, add simple CSS for presentation, and use JavaScript only for progressive enhancement. Skip the frameworks that break on anything less than perfect. Include alt text for images so people paying per megabyte understand what they're missing.

That woman's assessment says it all: 'It's shit. But it worked.' For public services and critical information systems, that should be the goal. Complex designs that fail on older devices exclude the very people who need these services most.